Museum offers Vietnamese life

Exit Saigon, Enter Little Saigon: Exhibit entitled "Exit Saigon, Enter Little Saigon" opened January 19, 2007 at the Smithsonian S. Dillon Ripley Center in Washington, DC. This is the first Vietnamese American historical exhibit at the Smithsonian. The exhibit tells the story of the Vietnamese American experience in America, from the significant influx in 1975 to the present. McClatchy-Tribune

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Star power radiated from the images on the walls, but what really drew me in were the words on those same walls.

They spoke of firsts: the first comedian to make it big in America (Dat Phan), the first football player to embrace that most embraceable sport, going on to win the Vince Lombardi award in college before retiring as one of the most successful linebackers in Dallas Cowboys history (Dat Nguyen).

Form and fusion, past and present mixed with another first -- the inaugural Smithsonian exhibit celebrating immigrant achievement in one of the youngest Asian communities in the U.S., called "Exit Saigon, Enter Little Saigon."

Note the name. Plenty of places call themselves Little Saigon now that the refugee population has resettled since 1975, but only one - the one here in Westminster - is proclaimed by a freeway sign that then-Gov. George Deukmejian unveiled in 1988, congratulating the city for being the "official home" of Little Saigon.

A photo and reproduction of that sign greets visitors at the entrance, where inside, I spent three hours the day before ribbon-cutting day, sifting through memories gone by.

The display, with partial funding and support by activists known as the D.C. Working Group, is divided into themes. It begins by asking: Who are Vietnamese-Americans? It goes on to document their exodus following the end of the Vietnam War, through Guam, through four refugee camps, arriving in America and adapting to Western life.

The black and white photographs are especially poignant, such as the one of families in line for McDonald's. There are borrowed photos from this newspaper and from the Southeast Asian Archive at UC Irvine.

The desperate boat people are not forgotten. But the saga of prisoners thrown in re-education camps under communist rule seems to get short shrift, especially when compared with the eye-catching fashions created by Chloe Dao, winner of the "Project Runway" television series, or the gown by Bao Tranchi, a designer whose portrait is one of 13 life-size cutouts depicting people making their mark. (Note: If you've won a reality TV series in a reality TV-obsessed nation, as did Dao and Phan of "Last Comic Standing," you're in.)

Orange County (and by extension, California) dominated, with many contributions and personalities represented in the show, from actress Kieu Chinh and developer Frank Jao to Tony Lam, retired city councilman always introduced by what has made him most famous - being the first Vietnamese-American elected to political office in the U.S. The trio's presence was enhanced by a fourth, Viet Dinh, former assistant attorney general and chief architect of the Patriot Act. Dinh, a graduate of Fullerton High School, now teaches at Georgetown University Law School.

The artifacts particularly moved me. A life preserver that a boy gave his mother, urging her to use it "should the boat sink" brought tears to my eyes. Categories featuring Cub Scouts, old men playing checkers, the joy of a wedding and the (imagined) fragrance of a steaming bowl of pho, along with powerful quotes pulled from written works, illustrated that amid the tragedy - loss of country, separation of generations - emerged salvation.

The coolest thing I learned, I learned walking in: The first contact between the United States and Vietnam is recorded in the letters of Thomas Jefferson. In 1787, while serving in Paris as U.S. minister to France, he met Prince Canh from "Cochinchina," a name used for Vietnam at that time. He asked the young man about varieties of rice that could be grown in America.

Vu Pham, curator, had this to say in a speech he wrote for a black-tie gala honoring the exhibit. "We wanted to balance the challenges, complexities and changes in Vietnamese America" while showing "how America has changed us - from Vietnamese to Vietnamese-Americans." As examples, he cited food, fiction and film, with the display including Tony Bui, first to win three awards at the Sundance Film Festival for his gorgeous and moving "Three Seasons."

The most impressionable person I met during my visit told me the simplest of things. "These are some points of view I might have never thought of because I was never exposed to the sights or the information," Winston Barber, a Smithsonian laborer, noted. "I worked with people from Vietnam, and they never said a word about it."

What next?

Sustaining. Educating. "Continuing to raise money for the Vietnamese American Heritage Endowment" with one of its goals to allow the show to travel, says businessman Ryan Nguyen Hubris, who donated $10,000 to it. "It's important for our community to have a permanent home for this exhibit."

Exit Saigon, Enter Little Saigon: Exhibit entitled "Exit Saigon, Enter Little Saigon" opened January 19, 2007 at the Smithsonian S. Dillon Ripley Center in Washington, DC. This is the first Vietnamese American historical exhibit at the Smithsonian. The exhibit tells the story of the Vietnamese American experience in America, from the significant influx in 1975 to the present. McClatchy-Tribune
New Exhibit: Exhibit entitled "Exit Saigon, Enter Little Saigon" opened January 19, 2007 at the Smithsonian S. Dillon Ripley Center in Washington, DC. This is the first Vietnamese American historical exhibit at the Smithsonian. The exhibit tells the story of the Vietnamese American experience in America, from the significant influx in 1975 to the present. McClatchy-Tribune

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